World Briefing / Italy

Berlusconi visits quake victims

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised to build new houses for the victims of massive mudslides in Sicily that killed at least 22 people and left more than 500 homeless.

Berlusconi visited the devastated area around the eastern coastal city of Messina and met with survivors who were being housed in hotels. He promised them the government would build new houses -- complete with sheets, flowers and a week's worth of groceries -- just as it did for the survivors of an April 6 earthquake in L'Aquila, central Italy.

In Messina and surrounding towns, rivers of mud tore down the mountainside Thursday night and Friday morning, killing 22 people and leaving an additional 40 still unaccounted for.